“Dong Feng 2A”Missile
2015年09月23日
The missile showed in below picture is an improved physical mid-and-short-range missile, which was donated by the Second Artillery Force of the PLA. This missile is 21.3m in length, weighs 4.18 tons, with max firing range up to 1500km. In 1966, our country launched experiments over “nuclear missiles carrying atomic warheads”, and the missile model that underwent testing is the same as this exhibit.
Untold Story I: Emergence of Dongfeng Ballistic Missiles
In the early years of New China, the industrial development of China mainly depended upon capital investment and technical assistance. At that period, China exchanged through foreign trade at equal values for “156 types” of Soviet industrial project assistance, with building nuclear bombs and missile factories and corresponding technologies included.
Chinese missile production started from imitating Soviet missiles. At the end of 1957, Soviet provided China with two P-1 missile models, and in June, 1958, the first batch of drawings and technical documentation of P-2 missiles was transferred. Scientists and engineers formed the Fifth Institute of National Defense Ministry (hereinafter called “the Fifth Institute”) , translated and copied those documents and made preparation for imitating the “1059”model missile.
“1059” was named for paying homage to 10th anniversary of the founding of New China of October 1, 1959. Under the lead of Qian Xuesen, scientists and engineers gained a thorough grasp of design theories, overcame technical obstacles and managed to advance imitations of Soviet missiles.
While the whole Fifth Institute was quietly getting immersed in hard work, the Sino-Soviet relationship suddenly cooled down and the “honeymoon period” of the two nations came to end. In June, 1956, the Soviets began to tear up the “Sino-Soviet New National Defense Technology Agreement”, and withdrew all the Soviet experts in the next year and abolished all the joint projects.
Although that following serious and tough situation fell upon the shoulders of Qian Xuesen, his confidence, self-improvement and self-esteem once again showed their power. During several round-table meetings, Qian Xuesen called upon all the personnel in the Fifth Institute with great passion not to give up or hold back, and to carry on the imitation of missiles. Qian stated, “All of us in the Fifth Institute would certainly get straight and upright under the pressure of the fact that Soviet experts were withdrawn. We are able to build our own missile mission with our best efforts, and the Soviets cannot overwhelm us!”
“We shall continue our work day and night; we shall burn the candles at both ends!”
“We will certainly catch up with progress!”
Just like that, inspired by Qian Xuesen’s passion and inspiration, all comrade fellows bent their efforts towards only one direction, held their breath and swore to launch the “1059”missile to the sky.
In September, final assemble of the first “1059”ground-to-ground missile was completed.
On October 23, “1059”, the missile travelled in a special train from Beijing to the launch site of Jiuquan, Gansu Province.
On November 3, the “1059”missile was erected in the Gobi desert, towering to the skies.
In November, the temperature at the launch site lowered to -20℃, with cold seeping into everyone’s bones. In order to guarantee safety, the technicians took off their fur caps and cotton-stuffed clothes and performed debugging in a platform higher than 10m against the piercing wind. At the same time, Qian Xuesen assumed personal command on the site along the way, and did not get away until the debugging was finished.
On November 5, it was a good sunny day. The “1059” missile up-straight in the launch cradle overlooked the vast Gobi desert and looked up to the clear and blue sky. Its tall and straight body was soaked with all the comrades’ hard work and sweat and embodied Qian’s painstaking care and efforts for five years.
At 9:00 am, under the command of chief officer, “1059”missile rose to sky, and hit the target exactly within the proposed impact area at the distance of 554km from the launch site after flying for 7 minutes and 37 seconds.
The command centre was transported with joy, and all the attendees could not help but hug each other and celebrate the successful launch.
On the celebration party of the same night, Marshal Nie Rongzhen held his wine glass high and said with great excitement: “today, the first missile produced completely by our country flied to sky from the land under our feet, it is an important turning point in the history of our military equipment. From now on, we have a missile of our own!”
This “missile of our own”- “1059”was named for “Dongfeng 1”, DF-1 for short. From then on, Qian Xuesen led the Fifth Institute to succeed in improving and designing the “Dongfeng 2 and Dongfeng 3” missiles by ourselves and Dongfeng missile family were expanded and gradually grew up to be the champion weapons of our national defense mission. “Dongfeng 31-A model” nuclear missile attending our 60th anniversary military parade of the New China on the 2009 National Day was the strong new member of the Dongfeng missile family.
Untold Story II: Moments of Ultimate Glory Co-existing with Ultimate Danger
On October 16, 1964, the first atomic bomb exploded in China and the rising mushroom cloud astonished the world.
However, this atomic bomb was detonated by fixing it upon an iron cradle in advance, which caused western media to state it was “only a bomb without a gun” to satirize China, faced with the reality that, although atomic bomb had been produced, it still could not be discharged.
How to change that situation?
Undoubtedly, missile is the best “gun”. Qian Xuesen proposed to develop nuclear missiles carrying nuclear warheads on the basis of successful test launches of mid-and-short-range missiles, and that is the well-known pioneering work of “combination of missile and atomic bomb” at the present time.
Nuclear missiles are very different from typical ones. A subtle mistake could incur irreparable losses. Qian Xuesen led the Fifth Institute to make improvements for the “Dongfeng 2”missile. All the comrades worked hard and took every detail quite seriously and carefully.
Qian Xuesen was busy in shuttling between Beijing and the experiment base, monitored the “Dongfeng 2A” (code name of DF-2A) missile improved for getting applied in “nuclear missile carried with nuclear warhead” test. DF-2A is an improved missile, stretches 21.3m, with 1.65m of bomb diameter and 29.8 ton launch weight. This missile adopted first-class liquid fuel rocket engine with firing range up to 1500km, and could carry a 1290kg nuclear warhead, whose explosive capacity equals that of 20 thousand ton TNT explosives.
On October 26, 1966, Marhshal Nie Rongzhen and Qian Xuesen came to the site to personally monitor the docking process of the “DF-2A”missile body and atomic warhead.
On the site, a young technician named Tian Xiankun took charge of that docking task. Given that the distance between the warhead and missile body was just longer than one foot, only by moving their bodies sideways could they go there. However, despite the narrow space, Tian Xiankun finished more than a hundred movements with perfect accuracy through his highly skilled technologies and tools, and succeeded in docking warheads and missile bodies just like doing embroidery on cloth.
It was early winter at that time, with temperature being more than 10 degrees below zero in the Gobi desert. Sometimes, strong wind blew over, making it difficult for people to open their eyes, and people even dressed with both fur coats and fur pants could not defend against the coldness, shivering with cold. In spite of the tough and cold weather conditions, in order to move and operate within that narrow space, Tian Xiankun had no choice but to pull off his fur clothes with only a shirt left on his body.
When his body was enveloped with piercing coldness, he still had to be extremely careful and operated without any subtle mistake, so as not to generate static electricity, because the latter can detonate atomic bomb in whatever quantity, turning all the people and materials on the site into ashes. Therefore, everyone present on the site held their breath and put their hearts in their throats.
Tian Xiankun got a little nervous as well. As usual, it may take 40 minutes or so to complete the whole docking process, but on that day, it took him two times as long as usual to finish docking.
During that special 80 minutes, Marshal Nie Rongzhen and Qian Xuesen always stood aside to stare at the docking from beginning to end, without one step away. The two leaders showed great firmness and determination and extremely encouraged other workers to perform their own functions with no fear and worry! Each person got filled with energy to patiently wait the docking came to end.
Finally, Tian Xiankun completed all the docking steps. When he retreated from that narrow space, Marshal Nie Rongzhen immediately approached him and tightly held his hands.
Fuel was gradually added into the missile after inspecting, checking and verifying all the parameters about the docking of warhead and missile body.
Later on, the vast majority of people were evacuated from the launch site, and only seven launch operators of the underground control room remained there to hold their own positions.
Given the limited technical conditions at that time, an underground control room was set up near the site, just at a distance of 100 meters, which indicated the fact that anyone in control room would have no possibility of life, and would die if something had exploded on the ground.
Those seven heroes formed a team of “forlorn hope” after writing their posthumous papers. They concentrated attention to closely watch the red indicator light row and the white row without distractions, managed the auto control system with hands moving, ears listening and eyes observing and performed the launch task.
On October 27, 9:00 am, Tong Lianjie, one of the seven operators pressed the button of the principal machine of the control platform, and China’s first nuclear missile slowly rose and flew to the sky with a roaring boom.
However, the control room fell into quiet after the missile taking off, and no one could dare take a heavy breath. In their eyes, the nine minutes of estimated flight time seemed endless.
At last, Lop Nur testing ground delivered a report，stating: the nuclear missile hit the target exactly and the nuclear explosion smoothly took place!
That moment was so valuable and delightful! The seven operators in the underground control room could not help but shed tears of joy…
To celebrate that great and historic moment, and learning we were prepared to build the Qian Xuesen Library, the Second Artillery Force of the PLA donated to our library a missile with the same model as the “DF-2A”nuclear missile , and allowed us to use it as a large-scale physical subject exhibit in the Library. On March 27, 2011, under witness of the public, military officers and soldiers together with the construction company managed to unload the missile and then hoisted it to move from roof to rotunda, which took 45 minutes to complete the whole lift and set-up process.
The most glorious and most dangerous moments condensed into extraordinary, historic, and frozen time, which silently says, the peaceful time and life today we have derive from the endless efforts of Qian Xuesen and others in very tough environment.
